Welcome to Hanna Somatics!
Feeling stiff? Sore? Less than comfortable in your body? Hanna Somatics can help!
Hanna Somatics is a gentle, sensible, and safe approach to recover from chronic pain and have ease of movement throughout your life. Somatics is sensory-motor training that works for all kinds of stress, injury, and movement problems. It works for kids, it works for aging bodies, it works for everyone…
Learn how to move “from the inside out,” recover your well-being and enhance your life!
Hanna Somatic Education® (also known as Hanna Somatics) is a rapidly effective form of neuromuscular (mind-body training) movement re-education that goes directly to the root cause of most chronic muscular pain: the brain and the way in which it senses and organizes muscles and movement. By learning to regain awareness, sensation, and motor control of muscles—an educational process that can only be achieved through movement—the brain can remember how to relax and move the muscles properly. This process of sensory-motor training creates improved muscle function and enhanced sensory awareness.
Hanna Somatic Education is a safe, gentle, and common sense approach to reverse chronic pain. It is the only method of pain relief and sensory-motor training that targets the condition of Sensory Motor Amnesia (SMA).
Sensory Motor Amnesia is the condition of chronically tight muscles that have learned to stay contracted due to repeated and reflexive responses to stress such as accidents, injuries, surgeries, repetitive tasks, and ongoing emotional stress. The resulting patterns of muscular contraction that develop result in such common conditions as chronic back pain, neck, shoulder, and hip pain, limited mobility, joint pain, poor posture, shallow breathing, and uneven leg length.
Hanna Somatic Education particularly helps relieve pain and disability associated with common health complaints such as headaches, stiff or painful joints and muscles, fatigue, poor posture, breathing problems, impaired movement, accident trauma and whiplash effects, back pain, repetitive use/stress injuries.
If you are interested in maximizing the benefits of your health dollar and in achieving rapid, long-lasting results, Hanna Somatic Education clinical sessions and/or classes will teach you to reverse chronic muscle pain as you regain sensory awareness and voluntary control of your muscles and movement. Doing so can enable you to enjoy a rapid and significant improvement in physical comfort, quality of movement, posture, and overall appearance.
Hanna Somatic Education helps you to enjoy freedom from pain and more comfortable movement for the rest of your life.
Private Sessions with a Certified HSE Practitioner: A series of 60-90 minute sessions with a skilled practitioner of HSE can be a most effective way to release your particular inefficient muscular patterns. In a one-on-one session, a practitioner will work with you to help you develop a more accurate sense of your body and to recondition your muscle control. Most people report positive benefits from the first session.
Group Classes are a great way to begin or to reinforce your progress in self-awareness and movement after a private session. The exercises, based on the work of Thomas Hanna, are effective at eliminating pain and increasing movement and flexibility. The movements reprogram your brain through sensory-motor awareness of habitual tensions and re-establish feedback in a variety of slow, gentle, and easy moves. These movements complement any workout routine, yoga practice, or athletic activity, reminding your muscles that they can move freely and easily. Group classes teach you techniques and concepts to increase flexibility without harmful stretching and prevent injury through improved sensory-motor function.
Recorded Audio is another way to learn and practice somatic movements. Audio CDs are available both through the Novato Institute of Somatic Research and Training as well as other practitioners of Hanna Somatic Education. These CDs address specific holding patterns and guide you through movements to release and reverse those areas. The CDs led by Thomas Hanna and Eleanor Criswell Hanna offer hours of instructive assistance and entertainment to enjoy in the comfort of your home. The book, Somatics: Reawakening the Mind’s Control of Movement, Flexibility and Health by Thomas Hanna includes a detailed description of movement patterns that Hanna deemed essential to learn and practice. Dubbed the Daily Cat Stretch, these movements are also guided in Hanna’s audio series called The Myth of Aging.
To peer into the history of Hanna Somatic Education® is to encounter the bright star of its founder, Thomas Hanna. An original philosopher/teacher, Hanna developed a theory of somatology and of the field he named Somatics. As the founding editor of Somatics: Magazine-Journal of the Bodily Arts and Sciences, he saw the evolutionary/revolutionary import of somatic understanding and left a dazzling trail of insights into its many applications. His writings are a massive treasure to be discovered and rediscovered by all explorers of human potential.
A few of his many published works include:
In the early 1970s, Hanna, then Chairman of Philosophy at the University of Florida, was introduced to the work of Moshe Feldenkrais, an Israeli physicist, and body educator. Meeting Feldenkrais and watching him work had a great impact on Hanna as the Feldenkrais Method was compatible with Hanna’s somatic philosophy. In 1975, Hanna (at that time director of humanistic Psychology Institute, now Saybrook Institute) arranged the first Feldenkrais training program in the United States as director of the Humanistic Psychology Institute (now the Saybrook Institute). He continued his study with Feldenkrais for several years and practiced at the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training, an institute which he and Eleanor Criswell Hanna founded in 1975. During the time that he worked somatically with thousands of clients, he evolved the work in some highly effective ways, in part, by adding his understanding of the rules of biofeedback. Hanna observed characteristic postural difficulties in people of all ages and in all walks of life. He also noticed that certain procedures were extremely effective in helping clients regain control of muscles that were holding them in these postures and restricting their movements. These processes became known as Hanna Somatic Education.
In 1990, Hanna offered his first training program in Hanna Somatic Education. His intense dedication to teaching throughout his life was evidenced and illuminated as he transmitted the essence of his work to a group of 38 students. During five weeks of intensive training, he laid the foundation of the work and claimed to have held nothing back. Intending to spend the remainder of the coursework refining the fundamentals so eloquently presented, the training took a sharp turn with the sudden death of Thomas Hanna in a fatal automobile accident on July 29th, 1990.
Since then, the work has continued thanks to the clarity with which Hanna organized and imparted his mastery. Thanks also to the dedication of Eleanor Criswell Hanna, Ed.D, director of the Novato Institute, along with associates from the 1990 course, many have been trained in the full range of techniques and theory comprising Hanna Somatic Education.
The most common question people have about Hanna Somatic Education® (HSE) is how this method compares with other approaches to managing chronic pain. This is very important to understand, and here’s what the training team of the Novato Institute’s for Somatic Research and Training has to say:
HSE has a Feldenkrais lineage and there are some things in common, but Thomas found himself evolving in a somewhat different direction. In Feldenkrais clinical work, the practitioner moves the person, whereas with HSE, the person is moving, and more importantly, the
person is doing voluntary movement. HSE uses different areas of the brain than most pain relief methods, especially the voluntary motor cortex. Hands-on work (where the practitioner moves the person) doesnot involve the motor cortex at all. The cortex is key in that muscle relaxation is fostered by the motor cortex, so the tension/coordination changes are incorporated into the person’s neurophysiology and have a more lasting effect. The primary benefit for the person is in becoming his or her own somatic educator, not having to rely on someone else. When something comes up, they know what to do about it. Oh, I can do my Somatics.
Eleanor Criswell Hanna
Tom wanted to help people quickly, expediency was his driving factor and an active state with voluntary movement involving contraction followed by a slow, controlled release became the obvious method to success. Later on, Tom found research that was conducted by a scientist studying the pandicular response in farm animals that confirmed what he had been finding during his clinical sessions with people.
We don’t subscribe to the view of stretching that’s rampant in our culture because we know it triggers the stretch reflex, a natural reflex that results in heightened tension levels. We help the person understand that as they free contracted muscles and coordinate movement more easily, their whole physiology functions better.
Phil Shenk, certified HSE trainer
People report having more energy, feeling more clear-headed, even more emotionally able to cope with stress. Many even regain a whole side of their life, for instance, being able to take trips again, play with grandkids, and get regular exercise. People in pain have great difficulty exercising and there is plenty of research that says that exercise is way above crossword puzzles for brain health. Somatics has an elegant simplicity to it, a system approach that is body-wide in effect. Most people find the movements very pleasurable and relaxing. And, the best part is that while you are learning and improving your overall motor intelligence, your pain is easing and becoming part of your past.
Susan Koenig, certified HSE trainer
Hanna Somatic Education® Practitioner Training to become a Certified Hanna Somatic Educator is sponsored by the Novato Institute, Novato, CA
Hanna Somatic Education (HSE) is the method developed by Thomas Hanna for teaching voluntary, conscious control of the neuromuscular system to persons suffering from involuntary muscular disorders.
In Hanna’s words, “It is the most advanced system known for relieving chronic disorders which, otherwise, are untreatable by either medical or traditional therapeutic means” (Hanna, 1990). Thomas Hanna and Eleanor Criswell Hanna co-founded the Novato Institute for Research and Training in the 1970s. Upon Thomas Hanna’s death, Eleanor Criswell Hanna became the Director of the Novato Institute. Under her direction, the Hanna Somatic Education Practitioner Training continues to deepen and grow.
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or contact Eleanor Criswell Hanna at 415-892-0465.
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Hanna Somatic Education® (HSE) is based entirely on the principles of conventional neuroscience. HSE can be thought of as a modality of first recourse for neuromuscular pains and stiffness. In addition to improving neuromuscular performance (muscular differentiation and range of movement) and improving proprioceptive function (balance and coordination), HSE has shown itself clinically effective in relieving both chronic and acute pain.
Hanna Somatic Education works with the client’s whole postural pattern. In his 1989 book, Somatics, Thomas Hanna wrote about reflexive postural tendencies, which he classified as the Red Light reflex, understood to cause a forward-bent posture; the Green Light reflex, which causes an arched-back posture; the Trauma reflex, observed as postural asymmetry characterized by lateral flexion and/or rotation; and the senile posture, in which many muscle groups are co-contracted. These postures are created when an imbalance in muscle contraction patterns causes hyper-tonus (tightness) in the muscles. Practitioners trained as Hanna Somatic educators teach clients to use their brains to reset the resting tonus of muscles. The result is less pain and greater ease and comfort.
Hanna Somatic Education employs three primary protocols that have been designed to address the typical maladaptive postures described above. In addition, specialized extremity work may be combined with the basic protocols on a case-by-case basis.,
Within each of these protocols practitioners utilize three techniques to help clients develop more voluntary control of their muscles. These techniques include:
According to the basic principles of neuroscience, when a client voluntarily contracts and releases a compromised muscle there is a corresponding demand placed on the voluntary motor cortex for precise cortical control of that action. The voluntary contraction first causes a volley of electrochemical impulses leading from the motor cortex. These impulses excite the firing of the motor units in the appropriate spinal cord segment. When the client then attempts to relax the muscle, a volley of impulses from the motor cortex excite the interneurons which inhibits the firing of the motor units. Inhibition of the motor units (which includes the motor neurons and all the muscle fibers on which they synapse), allows the muscle to gradually relax. The result is restoration of fuller control to voluntary muscles groups.
A simple experiment can illustrate: Slowly bend your elbow with your palm facing toward your shoulder, and then slowly allow your arm to straighten. During these movements your corticospinal tract contracts your biceps muscle, and then decreases the output to the muscle, allowing it to relax and the arm to straighten. By applying these same basic principles to areas suffering from hypertonus, trained HSE practitioners can help clients recover voluntary control of compromised muscle groups.
Chronically contracted muscles often feel tight. Muscles that are tight suffer from inadequate circulation. Even though tight muscles get sufficient blood supply to stay alive, they are lacking in optimal fluids, nutrients, and oxygen. As a result, they are unable to excrete the by-products of muscle function, such as lactic acid. Chronically contracted muscles may also impinge on nerves, place undue stress on their joint attachments, cause local inflammation, and contribute to pain. With so many of their motor units “stuck” in chronic engagement, tight muscles may also seem weak and unable to access their full potential strength.
Fortunately, the various HSE techniques can provide relief from these many stressors. Means-whereby movements simply provide sensory input (information) to the brain about a muscle’s status. The effect of kinetic mirroring is more complex, working at the level of the spinal cord to inform the brain’s sensory cortex when a muscle has been shortened. Kinetic mirroring shortens a targeted muscle by bringing its origin and insertion ends closer together. This exerts a gentle pull on the muscle’s tendons and causes a message to be sent to the spinal cord to decrease the motor unit firing rate. The Golgi tendon organs (within the tendons) cause an inhibition of the motor unit firing, allowing the muscle to relax.
During voluntary pandiculations, clients are asked to deliberately contract a muscle or muscle group through a specialized concentric (not isometric) movement. The muscle action is designed to work against gravity or against a resistance provided by the practitioner. The resistance increases the muscle’s load, after which it is allowed to slowly and gradually lengthen as it returns to a neutral position. This phase represents an eccentric (lengthening) contraction and allows a new resting muscle tonus to be established. The slow nature of the movement recruits the corticospinal tract originating in the motor cortex as the only part of the motor system that can decrease the firing of the motor units. Information about the new resting tonus is conducted along the sensory pathways up to the brain’s sensory cortex. Neuronal connections between the sensory cortex and the motor cortex complete the sensory-motor loop.
An important additional component of the HSE learning process occurs when the Hanna Somatic Educator explains the relevant neuroscience principles (how HSE works) in language the client can easily understand. This invites yet another level of cortical participation by the client. Additionally, Somatic Exercises typically recommended by the practitioner for daily practice help the client maintain and reinforce the desired changes (due to long-term synaptic potentiation) in his or her somatic development.
